Southern Miss football falls to Liberty in four overtimes to open the 2022 season
Southern Miss opened the 2022 season with a gutting 29-27 four-overtime loss to the visiting Liberty Flames.
Frank Gore Jr. ran for a career high 178 yards, but fell inches short of pushing his team to a win on the final play of the game during the dueling two-point conversion portion of overtime.
“I thought (Liberty) showed they know how to win close games,” USM coach Will Hall said. “They’re a program that’s in year four that is proven they know how to win. They’ve gotten over that hump and done that. We showed that we’re not yet.”
Southern Miss turned the ball over five times and lost two fumbles inside the Liberty 5-yard line, one in each half.
Starting quarterback Ty Keyes took a shot to the helmet in the second quarter and had to leave the game with only four completions and two interceptions, bringing the “super back” formation back to the forefront of the USM offense.
Gore Jr. took the majority of the quarterback snaps in the second half and led a pair of scoring drives. The offense was aided by a pick-six from Eric Scott Jr. early in the fourth.
Liberty starting quarterback Charlie Brewer left the game in the first quarter with a fractured hand and the Flames cycled through a pair of backups.
Hugh Freeze’s team broke through with QB No. 3 and scored in the final minute of the game to force overtime, where it converted a two-point try in the fourth frame and set up the winning stand.
“We can’t dwell on the loss, we gave it all we had,” Gore Jr. said. “We have a nationally ranked opponent next week, so we got to keep taking steps forward and leave that game behind us. It’s over.”
Shades of 2021
The anticipation surrounding the season-opener was built in part by the desperation to escape the dreadful 2021 season, a year that saw a quarterback carousel lead to a stagnant offense that repeatedly set its defense up for failure.
The nightmares of that year began to swirl back into memory when Keyes left the game and Trey Lowe entered, only to throw an interception on his lone pass attempt.
When the Golden Eagles stepped onto the field in the second half, it was clear Hall was rolling with the super back before turning to Lowe or true freshman Zack Wilcke.
Hall said his staff has long considered the super back to be the de facto backup quarterback, but hid that fact during the preseason.
“We’d certainly like to have Ty back and we’ll keep developing Zack and keep coaching Trey,” Hall said. “There’s going to come a day where Zack Wilcke is ready to play. We need that to happen sooner rather than later. There’s going to come a day where Ty plays really well. We need that to happen sooner rather than later. And we’ll continue to work these super backs and having them ready.”
The move to the super back bypassed a long stretch of the 2021 season where the Golden Eagles relied on a rotation of players behind center and it put them in a position to win in the second half.
“Everybody was ready for it, everybody was excited for it, everybody wanted to do it,” Gore, Jr said. “Everybody bought in and we gave it our best.”
Opportunities missed
Liberty held a 10-3 lead at halftime and both of its scores came off USM turnovers. Antavious Willis fumbled at the goal line in the first quarter, taking away what likely would’ve been a score and creating a 17-point swing in the first half.
Despite the miscues, the Golden Eagles never fell completely out of the game.
“The good thing is, is that a year ago that team would’ve blew us out,” Hall said. “The turnover battle would’ve been the same because that’s a really good football program... We were toe-to-toe with them physically. It’s sickening that we didn’t win the game and that’s on me as the coach.”
Southern Miss turned the ball over at least three times in four of the first 10 games of last season and lost all four by an average of 16 points.
“We’re a talented football team that played really bad tonight,” Hall said. “We played bad. We had turnovers in the redzone. We had some defensive things happen there at the end after we had played phenomenal to let them score and get back in it. That’s not us.
“We got to fix those things. The good thing is we can fix those things, whereas last year those things couldn’t be fixed... There’s a lot of hope in this season.”
Southern Miss will hit the road for the first time next week when it travels to face Miami.
This story was originally published September 3, 2022 at 11:19 PM.
